SEI Awardees Announced October 9th

We support high-potential social

entrepreneurs to tackle Ireland’s

social problems.Here’s how.

Investment

We provide funding to social entrepreneurs to help them to take their solution to a social problem to the next level.

Support

We deliver targeted support to social entrepreneurs, helping them to build strong foundations and drive lasting social change.

Community

We connect Ireland’s leading business people and experts with social entrepreneurs to help them achieve maximum social impact.

1.7

million lives directly impacted this year

We’re committed to helping

high potential social

entrepreneurs develop and

scale their impact.

Meet some of the people

we have supported.

Iseult Ward and Aoibheann O’Brien
FoodCloud

FoodCloud makes the redistribution of surplus food as easy as possible, matching businesses with too much food, with charities in their community that have too little, tackling food waste and food poverty in the process.

The Irish Men’s Sheds Association was established with the purpose of supporting the development and sustainability of Men’s Sheds on the island of Ireland, advancing the health and well-being of all its members.

GIY (Grow it Yourself) Ireland is on a mission to encourage people from all walks of life and of all ages to grow their own food and to provide them with the practical skills they need to do so successfully.

We support social entrepreneurs directly through our dedicated Social Entrepreneurs Ireland team and through our network of supporters and advisors.

We support social entrepreneurs directly through our dedicated Social Entrepreneurs Ireland team and through our network of supporters and advisors.

John Duffy

Managing Director, KBW

Caroline Keeling

CEO, Keelings

Tommy Breen

Former CEO of DCC plc

Alison Cowzer

Entrepreneur and SEI Supporter

Stories from
around the country

Stories from
around the country

“I was a mother with two children, a lawyer, and a not-so-bad golf player. One day I went to my GP because my handwriting was getting smaller and my fingers started to shake on my right hand. A week later I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s. They told me it was degenerative, progressive and incurable. I was devastated. I cried on the couch for months. Eventually I thought to myself, I should stop crying and do something about this. There must be another way! I was never the sort of person who gives up on things easily, you see. So I spent the next eight years working out what Parkinson’s was about. I started blogging about my experiences around the same time because people wanted to hear my story. In the following months, it made it into the top 40 recommended medical blogs in the US. But I was very frustrated that there was nothing going on in Ireland at the time. One evening I set up a charity page, designed the logo and named it Move for Parkinson’s. As Einstein says, ‘Nothing happens until something moves.’ And it proved to be true; with life, with research, and with Parkinson’s too.

“Parkinson’s really hits me at times not only physically, but mentally. There are times I get into a very low and sad mood for hours, and it’s very hard to get back from it. The medication doesn’t lift me out from there anyway, what the doctors never tell you is about the toolbox I use to get me out from that dark place. I went to Move for Parkinson’s where they told me about the importance of that toolbox. It’s filled with things that makes me happy, pictures of my grandkids and my parents, pictures I had of being on holidays, notes of achievements, a pressed flower from my grandson, a couple of little stones and rocks I would have picked up that bring me back to a place where things were happy. Little things. This is a way of moving your mind just the way you have to move your body when you exercise. Your brain senses that you were happy and it lifts you back. Maybe not straight away but you can sense that this won’t last forever. You have to move everything. Taking the medications is certainly only a part of the story!”

Paul – Move 4 Parkinson’s member.

Read Our Story

Find out more about Social Entrepreneurs Ireland, who we are and why we do what we do.